Same Day Confirmed Change

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Chris

I was originally scheduled to leave Las Vegas Sunday morning. United and Continental recently aligned their same-day confirmed flight change policies, so I rescheduled my LAS-LAX-ORD-EWR segments into a single LAS-EWR redeye operated by Continental.

Based on this single data point, same-day confirmed flight changes with Continental are a pain. My inquiries in IAH for standby on the earlier flight and adding my name to the volunteer list on my scheduled flight messed up my reservation, requiring me to wait on hold while the elite desk fixed it and updated my itinerary.

McCarran International Airport offers visitors a few aviation related sights land-side. The Cessna 172 “Hacienda” hangs over the baggage claim area. I stopped to take a photo on my way to the security checkpoint for the D concourse.

 

Last night’s redeye was on a Boeing 737-924ER.

My upgrade to first class cleared at the gate. Taking off from runway 25R, I had to wait a bit for my left-side window seat to come into view of the Las Vegas Strip at night.

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Houston

Posted on May 28, 2011 by Chris

On my way to Las Vegas, I had a stop at IAH to switch over to a 757-300 scheduled to depart at 5:35PM.

My flight from PHL got in a bit early so I had time to leisurely enjoy the sprawling amalgamation of terminals to check on the 3:45PM departure to Las Vegas. While the gate agent there acknowledged my original flight would likely be oversold, she couldn’t process me as a volunteer thereby entitled to even the slightest compensation nor could I obtain anything better than a middle seat somewhere in the back of the plane. I declined and headed over to my original flight’s gate, now delayed to a 6:38PM departure due to a late arriving aircraft:

 

 

Unsurprisingly, once the podium was staffed, they sought out volunteers. Unlike United which generally offers a flat $400 in travel vouchers, Continental was offering $250 and a ticket for the 9:00PM departure. I’m seeing Penn & Teller tonight, so I was hoping for something a bit higher to convince me to miss the show and give up my first class seat.

This flight had a full vegetarian dinner available: Cheese ravoli with marinara, salad, and minestrone soup.

 

The meal was rounded out by blueberry cheesecake.

 

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24 Hours in Vegas

Posted on May 28, 2011 by Chris

Just under two weeks ago, I was looking around to figure out what I would be doing memorial day weekend. A few friends from college were going to be driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for the weekend and I decided it would be fun to join them.

When I was booking my trip, the only inexpensive way of getting there from the New York area was out of Philadelphia marketed by Continental (but oddly not United). Since then, there was a brief, now-gone sale out of NYC to LAS on most major carriers earlier this week. I had never flown in or out of PHL and figured it would be a good learning experience to familiarize myself with how easily I could get from midtown Manhattan to catch a flight. While today I had the leisure of departing at 12:30PM on a Saturday, it’s helpful to know the route before trying this on a Friday evening.

For the more gory technical details: I booked into a “K” fare on my outbound trip and an “L” fare on my inbound segments. Both had provided the routing PHL-WAS/PHL/EWR/CLT/CLE/CHI-HOU/DEN/CHI-SFO/LAX-LAS. Today, I’m traveling to Las Vegas via Houston. Tomorrow, I’m returning via LAX, ORD, and EWR, then using the Continental-sold Amtrak code share to get to Philadelphia.

For my first segment, I’m on a Continental 737-800. My upgrades to first class cleared 72 hours prior to departure for all five of my flight segments.

While not entirely obvious from the angle of the photo, there’s about 10 inches of room between my knee and the seat in front of me.

 

Since I was only flying out of PHL, I couldn’t get a full vegetarian lunch on this flight. Between a choice of a chicken sandwich and a chicken salad that the flight attendents could simply skip adding the chicken, I went with the salad.

 

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Introductions

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Chris

I got bit by the travel bug about nine months ago when I was about to start my senior year of college. Since then, I’ve graduated and moved to New York to work as a research scientist. For now, I’m flying on American Airlines with Platinum status and United Airlines with Premier Executive status. As a result, I’m bound to emphasize One World and the Star Alliance in my travels far more than Skyteam or independent carriers.

This year, I’m aiming to fly about 125,000 paid miles between the two programs for the year.

At first glance, that 125,000 mile goal could appear lofty and, more importantly, rather expensive. Had someone told me I would be doing this any earlier than eight months ago, I would have thought the same, but nothing could further from the truth. Planning my trips so that they are sanely priced is part of fun, just as the little nuances of the airport and the airplane enrich the experience do (at least for me).

Chris

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